Higher Education students have been helping to gather some
baseline data in a study that seeks to determine the habitat value of new
agri-environmental land management options for small mammals. The farm is currently
signed up to Entry Level Stewardship – a five year European funded scheme
governed by Natural England that encourages land owners to manage their land to
meet conservation objectives for farmland birds, soil and water protection and
other wildlife.
One option that delivers the most for wildlife is the wild
bird seed mixture. This can be established as an annual or biennial mixture and
can help to provide food for farmland birds in late winter during the so called
‘hungry gap’. Yet what is not so clear is how these mixtures will benefit
other animal groups.
Allied to some work on one of Britain’s smallest non-volant
mammals – the harvest mouse – FdSc Countryside & Wildlife Management
students have recently set out some trap lines in a mystery location on the
estate to attempt to estimate presence and potentially population sizes of
harvest mice. Modified Longworth and Wellfield live capture traps have been set
at 20 metre intervals along transects and these will be checked every day by
the students. Any captured animals will be marked as part of a
‘capture-mark-recapture’ method to elucidate population sizes and home ranges.
This information will give us an insight as to whether the bird seed mix option
delivers benefit to other important groups at the base of the farmland food
web.
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